Korma plays a mixture of Reggae, various types of world music (especially Middle Eastern and Indian) and Celtic/North American Folk Music (bluegrass). Wallace Pryor: vocals, guitars, mandolin, violin, harmonium, etc. Dan Bayne: vocals, bass. Kirk Kirkwood: drums. Ray King: percussion. Scott Galyon (replaced Ray King): percussion.
Wallace Pryor and Ray King began playing together in a mostly original alternative band, about 1996. They began playing open mike nights as a duet. In '97, After they were both snubbed by the rest of the band, and they were offered paid gigs as a duet, they took the name 'Planet 9' and began recruiting more members. When they got on the internet, the existance of another band with the same name prompted them to change their name to 'Kurma', which was the title of the first CD anyway.
We don't play live very often. It's difficult for a band as unusual as ours to find an audience in St. Louis. When we play live, we generally have to do mostly covers, which is all right, but it isn't really what we're all about. I wish we could have had at least one gig with a decent sound system and somebody who knows how to run it, but that has never happened.
Lee Perry (reggae pioneer, with an ear for unusual sounds), 3 Mustaphas 3 (eclectic world beat band with a sense of humor), Violent Femmes.
We don't get into electronic stuff too much, outside of guitar and vocal effects. We prefer 'natural instrument' sounds.
Korma has been a featured band on RadioNur.com, which features music and commentary related to the Baha'i Faith. Korma's song "Allah'u'Abha" was chosen for RadioNur's "Best Of 2003" CD. It was a wonderful feeling hearing "Humanity Is One" on local St. Louis station KDHX FM.
A friend of mine played guitar with us for a few gigs, he worked as a janitor in the high school both of us went to back in the 70s. He claims he heard some high students singing my song "Humanity As One." My cousin and another friend of mine both swear they heard some of my songs on a documentary on television; but I have no idea if that really happened or not because I never saw the show and they didn't know what it was called. Most of our gigs were disastrous, but we had a few nice moments. The best gig we ever had was at a lesbian bar; they said we had to have a female singer, so we recruited a local female reggae singer to sit in with us; we sounded pretty good and a lot of people I work with came to dance at the bar--I don't think they came because I was playing there, I think they were regulars at the bar, but it was a blast anyway.
